


talkin bout a revolution

by orphan_account



Category: Seraphina - Rachel Hartman
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 04:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17953442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Excerpt:"I could feel the color and smell the texture and taste nothing. I could touch it and pretend it was water. I could touch it and my finger would shine."Seraphina Dombegh is the half-Chinese daughter of a lawyer specializing in immigrant rights in a conservative town. And she's going to high-school. And she's sitting next to cute people all the time, for some reason. What could go wrong?The title was taken from the eponymous excellent song by Tracy Chapman.





	talkin bout a revolution

There’s been a murder in Goredd. It has shaken the town, crumbled the old maggoty-white marble foundations, leaving only an unsteady wooden pioneer’s house-frame and an easy scapegoat. No one really cares who murdered Rufus. Why would they? They already know who murdered him— well, who would have murdered him. They see gleaming brown hands curling around every lamppost and yellow-black hornet’s eyes blinking out of every car window. They see my uncle in his classroom; they see the students who clearly _aren’t from around here_. They put up signs and they spray aerosol around their high school locker rooms that smells comfortingly American and manly and right. You can taste it in the air. It’s like biting into a frozen soda from that drug store manned by a guy who _speaks English pretty well, surprisingly_. It’s like slurping up gasoline— and I would know what that tasted like. My little sister made me do that once on a dare. It tasted strange— I could feel the color and smell the texture and taste nothing. I could touch it and pretend it was water. I could touch it and my finger would shine.

____I pull my hair up into a ponytail. I comb my bangs and position the curler around them just so. I dip my fingers in the jam jar I washed out and filled last night with rosewater. I poke Tessie and Jeanne awake. They’re both round-faced and curly-haired and pale-skinned, but there the similarity ends. Jeanne curls up into a baby squirrel as she sleeps, curls up into a roly-poly bug, curls up into nothing when her mother is around. Tessie splays her limbs into long skinny freckled sticks, daring anybody to judge her, wrapping those arms around her mother whenever she threatens to break. But now they are identical: waking up angrily, although neither of them knows it. They blink their eyes, round eyes with a perfect crease in the lid.____

_____ _

_____ _

“Come on,” I say. “First day today. Get up.” 

They both know what that means. It’s strange to have sisters sometimes. We can say anything to the others and then weave it into something else, tear out the stains and make it glitter. (Of course, that didn’t exactly apply to the time they dyed my hair magenta “by accident” while I was sick.) Now they both head to the bathroom, where I’ve already set out their toothbrushes and hairbrushes and washcloths. I walk over to the next room. Neddie and Paul are sleeping like they’re in the military. It’s their new thing. Dad managed to convince the officers at the naval base to let Neddie and Paul poke around. He mentioned that some of their janitors were undocumented and that the officials had fudged their records. I shake the boys awake. They grumble and mumble and try to hit my face, but I duck, and they only swipe at the air. 

We wait now for the bus. Someone burnt down the elementary school last year, so all of us are going to the same place. Anne-Marie wanted to send all of her children to St. Abaster’s across town. She thought it would be better for their souls. But St. Abaster’s has been having some problems recently—one of the music teachers was found out to be gay, and they fired him. Now they’ve hired him for our high school. Apparently, some of the other teachers won’t talk to him for “moral reasons” or something. Anne-Marie thinks that he should have been run out of town. 

The bus comes. It’s scratched up from years of use, a gruff veteran with a torn-up cigar of a license plate hanging from its grungy orange face. I push the kids up the stairs. They accelerate into the mussed-up seats, sitting with each other instead of their classmates. The bus travels more. I sit alone, which I know sounds, well, pathetic. And that sentence sounded even more pathetic. Like the start to some stereotypical Y.A. book about some pretty white girl realizing she is, in fact, pretty and white after a cute b— Fuck. 

I would call this a meet-cute, except the boy isn’t actually looking at me as he slumps down into the seat, and then straightens up again, as if he expects a camera is following him. Our thighs brush, and I realize that I am, in fact, not wearing very much. No, not like _that_. It’s just that I thought it would be too warm to wear tights, and if you squint really hard you can see my bra through my shirt. Not that there’s much to see. I inch further towards the grimy window, and my flute case bangs against the seat in front of us. He sits up even straighter as if he’s just realized I’m sitting here. Maybe he has. 

“Uh, who are you? Um, not in a rude way. Just like, um, you know, um.” Despite his deep (and, _okay, fine_ , attractive) voice, he’s surprisingly inarticulate. Maybe he hasn’t been getting much sleep. 

I get a better look at him. He’s got curly brown hair and pretty eyes with dark circles underneath. He’s clutching a book whose name I’m having trouble reading, and his backpack looks rather expensive—silvery intricate clasps and nice leather straps—and out of place in the bus. 

He’s blinking now like he’s waiting for something. Oh. 

“I’m, I’m Seraphina. Um, like a seraph. In the Bible. An angel. But you probably already knew that, um, what are you reading, sorry.” 

He blinks again. His eyelashes are long and curly too, just like a girl’s. “ _This Side of Paradise_. And, uh, I did know what a, a seraph is. My name’s Lucian. Like, um, Lucius Malfoy in _Harry Potter_? Sorry, uh, obvious reference, um.” He sees me shaking my head violently and says, “Or, um, _like_ Lucius Malfoy, if you’re into that?” 

I feel a bit stupid. What if he hates _Harry Potter_? What if he thinks I’m a weird Tumblr fangirl whose only occupation is writing 50K+ essays on the Internet about Blaise Zabini? Which is, I mean, true. But still. I answer, “Yes,” and then feel even more stupid. He clearly expected something more, because he opens his mouth and closes it like a trapdoor unlocked for a brief second. He opens it again, and then he grins. “Me too.” 

And I feel rather happy, right up until the very next second when we arrive at school, and we elbow our ways off the bus, and I see only a crowd of jostling pale faces. 


End file.
